


Aankh Milao

by AkelaKela



Series: Bollywood One-Shots [2]
Category: Bollywood - Fandom, Do Lafzon Ki Kahani (2016)
Genre: Bollywood, Bollywood One Shot, Do Lafzon Ki Kahani (2016) - Freeform, F/M, Kajal Aggarwal, Randeep Hooda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 21:43:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11609538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkelaKela/pseuds/AkelaKela
Summary: One shot because I didn't like the lack of conclusion surrounding Suraj's involvement in Jenny's accident. Also I thought selective mutism was possible.





	Aankh Milao

**Author's Note:**

> I  thought it was a bit weird that Sooraj never got to tell Jenny about the accident, but with so many things going on in the film, I figured it could get confusing so I thought I'd just write my version for fun. I don't think it's very good but there you go. To me it looked like he could have had selective mutism so I wrote that in a little bit as well.

"Sooraj?"

Jenny laid a hand on her husband's turned back.

The warm, clammy air swirled around the both of them from the open windows.

"Jenny!" Sooraj shot up with a yell, scrabbling backwards and kicking the thin sheets off himself. His eyes shot about, searching frantically for any fragment of the recurring nightmare that might be lurking in the soft shadows of his life.

"Sooraj, I'm here. It's okay." His chest rose and fell with each ragged breath and he didn't register the contact until Jenny's arms were all the way around him. 

The flashing, grisly pictures skipped back again and again behind his eyelids like a badly recorded, spoiled tape playing in an old movie theatre. 

Only this time, along with the fire and crushed car, there was Sikander's voice echoing in his ears, the burning bite of steel through the muscle and skin over his stomach.

_He could see the blinding glare of headlights._ _The thick, dull thud of his body being thrown over the car and the scrape of gravel against his skin a_ _nd the cold, desolate, thoughtless feeling that settled in his chest._

_There was no one._

_He lay alone on that road for what felt like years, slipping in and out of his mind._ _Slowly, everything stopped hurting._ _His broken nose didn't throb and his head didn't ache. His back didn't feel broken anymore._

_His relief was cut short when his battered, broken body became a cage._ _He was alive only in his mind. The rest of him lay as still as a corpse. Every time he tried to move, he blacked out._

_Again and again he tried._

_To lever himself up and stagger to safety._

_The next time he woke, he was lying on a hard, cold surface._ _The voices around him were speaking too fast for his befuddled mind to decipher. All he wanted to hear was Jenny's tinkly giggle._ _The ceiling above him was white and shiny and too close to him for it to be a hospital._

_He was in an ambulance._

_The next time he came awake, he was lying on a soft bed._ _In hospital._ _He turned his head slowly. The steady droplets of liquid running through the drip that must be attached to him were regular. Hypnotic. He slipped away again._

_In this drug-addled sleep there was no room for nightmares. He was too drugged to dream._ _Everything was black, soft and wonderful. There were no ghosts thirsty for revenge to reach through the veil broken by darkness and chastise him with their faces._

_When he woke for the third time, he was in the same hospital room. The nurse asked him his name._

_All of them did._ _But the words wouldn't cross the slippery, broken bridge between his mind and mouth and he stayed silent._ _He could barely move. He couldn't speak._ _What hadn't been bruised or broken in the fight or by the fixer's fists afterwards had been snapped during his oh-so-smooth meeting with Sikander's car._

_His days were spent gazing, head tilted out of the window. His stiff fingers of the hand that wasn't broken fingered the smooth pebble. It's weight was cool and comforting. He felt like a living corpse more than ever ._ _His hair grew long and hung in unkempt, greasy clumps around his face and a beard was growing unchecked on his cheeks, straggly and too-long._ _Once he caught sight of himself in a mirror. He was being wheeled down one of the halls of the hospital and the shiny stainless metal side of a cart reflected his face back at him._

_His eyes were deep and sunken and his long-overgrown hair hung over them, obscuring his straight brow._ _The beard hid his jaw and his broken nose was still splinted._

_Jenny would never recognise him, even if they came face-to-face._

_And she didn't._

_Tears had threatened to spill over on the day that they really did._ _Her voice, as cheery as ever tinkled through the room, peeling away the oppressive blanket of quiet._ _Her hands were gentle and familiar on his back. B_ _ut there was no comfort in them today._

_He squeezed his stone and hard as he could and gritted his teeth, eyes shut._ _With the sound of her receding footsteps, his tears fell. Flowing over his nose and soaking into the sheets._

_The pebble lay uselessly in palm._

"Sooraj, kiya hua?"

"Kuch nahi." He breathed and jerked himself from her grasp. He turned over and settled himself again, his back turned. He didn't have to turn around to see the expression on her face. So he didn't.

-

"Sooraj, are you okay?" Jenny laid a hand on his arm.

He stared down into his cornflakes silently.

"Aaj kal tum kuch ziyada hi silent ho gaye ho." 

("These days you're a little _too_ silent.")

She added with a giggle that sounded forced.

_"Main theek hoon."_

_("I'm fine.")_

 He rehearsed in his head, planning to add an effortless smile on behind his words. But again, nothing came out.

So he looked up, brushed the strands of hair out of his eyes and a faked smirk and sideways nod of head.

Jenny didn't look in the least bit fooled.

He left for work early and came home late, brushing Jenny off again and again for an entire week.

No words left his mouth for an entire week. Not outside, not at home. He woke in a cold sweat every night, the same screams echoing in his mind.

So Jenny cornered him in the living room when he came home from work on Sunday.

He shuffled into the house, shutting the door quietly behind him. His crutch clicked softly and he turned around, bending at one knee awkwardly to pull off his shoes.

She was sitting on the couch silently when he flicked one of the lamps on.

"Sooraj, kiya hua? What's wrong? Maina kuch ghalat kaha?"

("Sooraj, what happened? What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?")

He limped over to her and lowered himself down next to her painfully. She looked at him, a worried question on her face and he shook his lowered head.

"Sooraj, tell me what's wrong. Please." She whispered, tentatively pulling him into a hug. He closed his eyes, his head nestled into the crook of her slender neck. The sweet scent of lemon shampoo and light body splash was comforting and unchanging.

Sooraj leaned into her without hugging back, his arms dangling uselessly at his sides. He could feel her cold tears plop onto his neck, soaking the ragged neck of his T shirt.

Suddenly, she pulled away, holding him by the shoulders at arm's length.

"Talk to me." She demanded. Her cute, determined face might even have been funny. If they were anywhere else, he would have flicked the and of her nose and chuckled, told her not to worry.

The guilt weighed so heavily down on his chest that he was afraid of feeling his ribs crack again.

Jenny's face blurred out in front of his eyes and he didn't realise he was crying until the tears stung his cheeks.

Even her voice faded.

"Sooraj! Sooraj!" Her shrieks frightened him and he shook off her shaking hands, bringing his own up in front of his face, automatically shielding himself.

He let his arms down slowly, staring into his wife's eyes.

How was he supposed to tell her?

"Kuch bol."

("Say something.") 

Her whisper is brittle and cracked.

He just shakes his head.

-

Two days into the next week she slides a glossy brochure across the breakfast table.

"We can go after work."

He reads the english script, smaller under the malay words.

It's a therapy centre not far from their house.

"Kiya soch ra he ho?"

("What're you thinking?")

She sounds scared that he'll be mad.

And he should be.

But he's too tired to be mad. Dragging himself out of bed in the morning, it feels like he's dragging a lead weight behind him and slipping back into bed to sleep isn't any easier.

"Jenny." The word's out  before he realises he was thinking it. His voice is cracked and strained from the weeks of silence.

He looks up at her. 

Her big eyes have already filled with tears.

"I'm sorry."

Sooraj rises and crosses around the table, placing his hands on her small, shaking shoulders. She covers her face with her hands and sobs.

He leads he to the couch, their half-eaten breakfast forgotten.

"Jo tere accident hue the." 

("Your accident.")

His words were like a dripping tap, flowing from out of control to a dribble.

Every single one was an enormous effort.

"Ghalti meri thi."

("It was my fault.")

Those three words dropped, heavier than the weight on his chest every day.

"No! Possible nahi hai!"

("No! It's not possible.")

"Tum ek jalte hue aadmi ke taraf dekhrahi thi. Aur gaardi out of control hogayi."

("You were looking at a man on fire. And the car slipped out of control.")

His wife dug her fingers into her scalp, sobbing.

"Mein eik loanshark ke liye kaam karta tha. Woh ek client tha."

("I worked for a loanshark. That man was a client.")

Jenny was distraught. Sooraj wanted to hug her, pat her back.

But he didn't lay a finger on her. His eyes stayed glued to the rug on the floor. Elbows resting on his knees, he clasped his hands together, digging his nails into the backs of them.

"Jab mein paise lene aaya, maine usko maarne shuru kiya. Usko darane ke liye. Lekein kisi ne police ko bulaya aur jab maine darwaze ki taraf dekha, us banda ne khud par petrol penkh diya."

("When I went to collect the money, I started beating him. To scare him. But someone called the police and when I looked towards the door, he threw gasoline all over himself.")

He couldn't forget. The banging on the door, and turning to see the man, dripping, flick the cigarette light on. 

He'd touched it to his sleeve, ignoring Sooraj's pleas.

"Usne sheeshe se kood karne ki koshish kiya aur maine uska haath ghaseetke parkda."

("He tried to jump from the window and I grabbed his hand.")

He'd caught sight of the man's eyes, wide and wild with fear and pain. He was yelling, the fire having consumed most of his body.

"Mera haath jalgiya. Teri gaardi ka haadisa mere saamne hua tha. Aur maine us aadmi ka haath chordiya."

("My hand was burned. Your car crashed right in front of me. And I let go of that man's hand.")

His words were gone again. Sooraj rose from the couch, fumbled for his crutch and left the house. He didn't come back that night. Or the next. Or the next. Jenny went to and from her shop, taking orders and making sales.

But everything was dull, grey despite Malaysia's sunny, humid weather.

Nothing she sculpted met her standards. 

On the fifth day, when she didn't see Sooraj skulking anywhere near the house or shop, she set out to look for him. Oscar sniffed his old hoodie once and set out, nose to the ground. She checked at gyms, taken from the brochures littering the bedside table's drawer.

When that failed, she checked hospitals. On street corners, their old flats. The she brought the dog to look under bridges and on street corners.

No one had seen him. It was like he didn't exist. She searched for two days, her nightly forays carrying on into the wee hours. The neighbourhoods she began to venture into made her nervous. The leering men, trash lining the streets and crushed beer cans rattling against the empty roads. None of her calls were answered. His voicemail was full. None of her messages had been read.

On the third day of her mission, she was trudging through another seedy housing estate. A group of young men began to follow her.

She pulled her thin cardigan closer to her, buttoning it all the way up and shifted her grip on Oscar's leash.

"Aiiyay! Tengok diya tu! Mmuah!" 

("Aiiyay! Look at her! Mmuah!")

The man was clearly drunk and she could hear his stagger. He was coming closer. Jenny sped up, her ballerina flats slapping against the rough, paved road. A large, sweaty hand clamped down on her shoulder and she spun around, the dog's leash in a death grip.

"Leave me alone." Every word of her heavily accented Malay was gone.

"Ahah! Cakap bahasa orang putih!"

("Ahah! She speaks English!")

The three other men behind him laughed, leering at Jenny.

Oscar was going mad, barking and growling straining against the red leash holding him back. She dimly remembered that he was trying to defend her and that she should probably let his leash go.

It began to slip from between her sweaty, clenched fingers.

Just as the huge dog lunged toward the man in front of him, Jenny heard a yell.

Sooraj.

His right hand gripping the steel crutch, he threw a well-placed left hook. He fought like a tiger, claws swiping in and out, leaving behind bloody gashes. Her husband threw his right arm over the ringleader's neck, trapping him under his arm and slammed his knee into his face before tossing him to the curb. The four men scurried away, nursing dog bites, bruises and bloody noses.

Then he turned, favouring one bent shoulder. One of his arms was wrapped around his midsection. Sooraj began to shuffle away, tattered sneakers dragging along the road. Each halting step taking him farther away from her. One of his jean legs was ripped clear from the knee to the middle of his shin and his thin green T shirt was dirty and full of holes.

"Sooraj." Oscar's leash was lying next to him, at Jenny's feet.

He stopped, one foot in front of the other. His lowered head rose slightly and Jenny strode over. She placed a hand on his shoulder and turned him around slowly.

He was a mess. There was dried blood smeared around a scabby cut on his left cheek and his face was dirty. His shoulder was injured, judging from the way he held it.

So she hugged him as gently as she could.


End file.
